The Intersection of ABM and Email Marketing

Account-Based Marketing (ABM) is a strategy that focuses on identifying and targeting a select group of high-value accounts. It is a departure from traditional, one-size-fits-all marketing methods, as it customizes marketing efforts to cater to the unique needs and preferences of each target account.

Email marketing, on the other hand, has long been recognized as a versatile and cost-effective channel for reaching potential customers. When integrated with ABM principles, email marketing becomes a potent tool for building and nurturing relationships with key decision-makers within target accounts.

Why Personalization Matters in Email Marketing

Personalization has emerged as a crucial element in email marketing success. It goes beyond addressing recipients by their first names; it involves tailoring the content of your emails to align with the recipient’s role, interests, pain points, and stage in the buying journey. In the context of ABM, personalization takes on even greater significance, as it ensures that every interaction with a target account is relevant and valuable.

Here are some compelling reasons why personalization matters in email marketing:

1. Improved Engagement: Personalized emails are more likely to capture the recipient’s attention and encourage them to take action. When an email resonates with a recipient, they are more likely to click, read, and respond.

2. Enhanced Relevance: Personalization ensures that the content of your email aligns with the recipient’s specific needs and challenges. This relevance makes the email more persuasive and valuable to the recipient.

3. Relationship Building: Personalized emails help build stronger and more meaningful relationships with target accounts. By demonstrating a deep understanding of their needs, you position your business as a trusted partner.

4. Increased Conversions: Ultimately, the goal of any marketing campaign is to drive conversions. Personalization has been shown to significantly increase conversion rates, whether it’s signing up for a webinar, downloading an ebook, or making a purchase.

Crafting Compelling Email Content for ABM

Now that we understand the importance of personalization in email marketing, let’s explore how to craft compelling email content for ABM campaigns:

1. Know Your Target Accounts Inside Out

The foundation of effective ABM email marketing is a deep understanding of your target accounts. Research their pain points, objectives, industry trends, and key decision-makers. Use this knowledge to create highly relevant and personalized email content.

2. Segment Your Email List

Segmentation is a fundamental aspect of ABM. Divide your email list into segments based on factors such as industry, company size, and job roles. This segmentation allows you to tailor your email content to the unique characteristics of each group.

3. Create Personalized Subject Lines

The subject line is the first thing your recipients see, so make it count. Use the recipient’s name, reference their company, or include a question that piques their interest. A well-crafted subject line can significantly increase email open rates.

4. Craft Compelling Email Body Copy

The body of your email should deliver on the promise of the subject line. Address the recipient’s pain points and offer solutions. Use persuasive language and provide valuable insights or resources that demonstrate your expertise.

5. Leverage Dynamic Content

Dynamic content allows you to customize the email content based on the recipient’s profile and behavior. For example, you can showcase case studies relevant to their industry or highlight products/services tailored to their needs.

6. Include Personalized CTAs

Your call-to-action (CTA) should align with the recipient’s stage in the buying journey. Whether it’s requesting a demo, signing up for a trial, or downloading a whitepaper, ensure that the CTA is relevant to their needs and interests.

7. A/B Testing

Continuously refine your email content through A/B testing. Test different subject lines, email copy, visuals, and CTAs to identify what resonates best with your target accounts.

Measuring the Success of ABM Email Campaigns

To ensure the effectiveness of your ABM email campaigns, it’s essential to measure their success. Here are key performance indicators (KPIs) to track:

1. Open Rates: Measure the percentage of recipients who open your emails. A high open rate indicates that your subject lines are compelling and relevant.

2. Click-Through Rates (CTR): Track the percentage of recipients who click on links within your email. CTR is a good indicator of how engaging your email content is.

3. Conversion Rates: Monitor the percentage of recipients who take the desired action, such as filling out a form or making a purchase. Conversion rates help you assess the effectiveness of your CTAs.

4. Response Rates: For ABM campaigns, responses are often more valuable than traditional conversions. Track how many recipients respond to your emails with questions, requests for information, or expressions of interest.

5. Pipeline Contribution: Measure the impact of your ABM email campaigns on your sales pipeline. Are they helping move target accounts further along the buying journey?

6. Revenue Generated: Ultimately, the success of your ABM email campaigns should be reflected in revenue. Calculate the revenue generated from target accounts that engaged with your emails.

Take Your Email and ABM to the Next Level

Account-Based Marketing (ABM) and email marketing are a dynamic duo when it comes to engaging with high-value target accounts. By harnessing the power of personalization, you can create email campaigns that resonate with key decision-makers and drive conversions. Remember to start with a deep understanding of your target accounts, segment your email list, and continuously measure and optimize your campaigns. With these strategies in place, you can unlock the full potential of ABM for your email marketing efforts and see a significant boost in ROI.

Ready to take your email marketing and ABM efforts to the next level? Contact Modern Marketing Partners today to explore how our expertise can help you craft personalized and effective campaigns that drive results. Our team of email marketing experts are here to assist you in achieving your marketing goals and connecting with your target accounts. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to supercharge your marketing efforts – reach out to us today!

Additional Resources

The Power of Data in Account-Based Marketing: Leveraging Insights for Targeted Campaigns

Seven Steps for Targeted Email Marketing for Maximum ROI

The Role of Email Marketing in Lead Generation

7 Ways to Improve Your Email Open Rates

The post Unlocking the Power of Personalization: ABM Strategies for Email Marketing appeared first on Modern Marketing Partners.

1. Understanding Your Target Accounts

One of the key benefits of ABM is its focus on specific target accounts. By leveraging data, companies can gain a deep understanding of their target accounts, including their pain points, challenges, and goals. This knowledge allows marketers to create highly personalized campaigns that resonate with their audience and address their specific needs.

2. Data-Driven Personalization

Personalization is a cornerstone of successful marketing campaigns, and data is the fuel that drives it. With the right data, companies can create personalized experiences for their target accounts, tailoring content, messaging, and offers to each account’s unique requirements. By leveraging insights from data, marketers can deliver highly relevant and timely messages that capture the attention of their audience and drive engagement.

Learn more in How Data and Personalization Inform the Customer Journey.

3. Predictive Analytics for Targeting

Predictive analytics is another powerful application of data in ABM. By analyzing historical data and patterns, companies can identify accounts that are most likely to convert or become high-value customers. This allows marketers to prioritize their efforts and resources on the accounts that have the highest potential for success. By leveraging predictive analytics, companies can optimize their ABM strategies and achieve better results.

4. Data-Driven Campaign Optimization

Data provides valuable feedback on the performance of marketing campaigns. By analyzing data, companies can identify what’s working and what’s not, allowing them to make data-driven decisions to optimize their campaigns. Whether it’s adjusting messaging, refining targeting criteria, or tweaking creative elements, data insights enable marketers to continuously improve their ABM efforts and drive better results.

5. Measuring ROI and Attribution

One of the challenges in marketing is measuring the return on investment (ROI) and attributing it to specific campaigns or activities. With data, companies can track and measure the impact of their ABM efforts, providing valuable insights into the effectiveness of their strategies. By understanding which campaigns are driving the most revenue and which channels are delivering the best results, marketers can allocate their resources more effectively and optimize their marketing spend.

Get Data-Driven ABM Campaigns From Modern Marketing Partners

Data is a powerful asset in account-based marketing. By leveraging insights from data, IT companies can create targeted campaigns, deliver personalized experiences, optimize their strategies, and measure their ROI. Embracing the power of data in ABM allows companies to stay ahead in a rapidly evolving industry and drive better results for their marketing efforts.

If you have any questions or would like to learn more about how Modern Marketing Partners can help your company with account-based marketing, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Additional Resources

Why IT Companies Should Embrace Account-Based Marketing

Account-Based Marketing vs. Traditional Marketing: Which Approach is Right for Your Business?

Top Account Based Marketing Tools and Tactics

The post The Power of Data in Account-Based Marketing: Leveraging Insights for Targeted Campaigns appeared first on Modern Marketing Partners.

What is Account-Based Marketing?

Account-based marketing is a strategic approach that focuses on targeting specific accounts or companies, rather than casting a wide net and hoping for the best. By identifying key decision-makers within target accounts and tailoring marketing messages and campaigns to their specific needs and pain points, IT companies can build stronger relationships, increase customer retention, and drive higher ROI.

Benefits of ABM for IT Companies

One of the key benefits of account-based marketing for IT companies is the ability to build stronger relationships with key decision-makers. In the IT industry, purchasing decisions are often made by a select group of individuals who have a deep understanding of the company’s technology needs. By focusing on these decision-makers and providing them with personalized and relevant content, IT companies can establish themselves as trusted advisors and increase their chances of winning new business.

Another advantage of account-based marketing for IT companies is increased customer retention. In a highly competitive market, customer loyalty is crucial for long-term success. By implementing ABM strategies, IT companies can proactively engage with existing customers, understand their evolving needs, and provide them with tailored solutions and support. This not only helps to strengthen the customer relationship but also increases the likelihood of upselling and cross-selling opportunities.

Furthermore, account-based marketing can drive higher ROI for IT companies. Traditional marketing approaches often involve casting a wide net and hoping to attract a large number of leads. However, this approach can be costly and time-consuming, with no guarantee of success. With ABM, IT companies can focus their resources on a select number of high-value accounts, ensuring that their marketing efforts are targeted and effective. By investing in personalized content, targeted advertising, and tailored campaigns, IT companies can maximize their return on investment and achieve better results.

4 ABM Tips for IT Companies

So, how can IT companies get started with account-based marketing? Here are some practical tips and insights:

1. Identify your target accounts: Start by identifying the key accounts or companies that align with your ideal customer profile. Look for companies that have a high likelihood of benefiting from your IT solutions and services.

2. Understand your target audience: Once you have identified your target accounts, take the time to understand the key decision-makers within those companies. What are their pain points? What challenges are they facing? By gaining a deep understanding of your target audience, you can create personalized and relevant content that resonates with them.

3. Tailor your marketing messages and campaigns: Use the insights gained from understanding your target audience to tailor your marketing messages and campaigns. Create content that addresses their specific needs and pain points, and deliver it through the channels and platforms that they prefer.

4. Leverage technology and tools: There are various tools and technologies available that can enhance your ABM efforts. From customer relationship management (CRM) systems to marketing automation platforms, these tools can help you streamline your processes, track engagement, and measure the success of your campaigns.

We Can Help Your IT Company Develop and Executive an Effective ABM Campaign

In conclusion, account-based marketing (ABM) has emerged as a powerful strategy for IT companies to drive growth and success in today’s competitive landscape. By focusing on building strong relationships with key decision-makers, increasing customer retention, and driving higher ROI, ABM offers a targeted and personalized approach that traditional marketing methods may not be able to achieve.

No matter what role your company plays in the technological landscape, it pays to have a team on your side that lets you focus on closing deals, catering to your clients, and constantly delivering. If you’re ready to take your IT marketing efforts to the next level and embrace the power of ABM, contact Modern Marketing Partners today. As leaders in the IT space, our team of experts specializes in ABM services, and we can help you develop and implement effective strategies that align with your business goals. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to revolutionize your marketing approach and achieve remarkable results. Contact us now!

Additional Resources

Get a Marketing Asssessment

Account-Based Marketing vs. Traditional Marketing: Which Approach is Right for Your Business?

6 Tips to Grow Your IT Business

The post Why IT Companies Should Embrace Account-Based Marketing appeared first on Modern Marketing Partners.

Understanding the Basics of ABM and Traditional Marketing

First, let’s understand the basics of account-based marketing. ABM is a strategic approach that focuses on targeting specific accounts or companies rather than casting a wide net to attract a broad audience. It involves identifying key accounts that align with your ideal customer profile and tailoring personalized marketing campaigns to engage and convert them. ABM emphasizes quality over quantity, allowing businesses to build stronger relationships with their target accounts and increase their chances of closing deals.

On the other hand, traditional marketing takes a more generalized approach by targeting a broader audience. It typically involves mass advertising through channels such as television, radio, print media, and online platforms. Traditional marketing aims to create brand awareness and reach as many potential customers as possible. While it may generate a higher volume of leads, the quality and relevance of these leads may vary.

Pros and Cons of ABM and Traditional Marketing

Now, let’s delve into the benefits and limitations of both ABM and traditional marketing. One of the key advantages of ABM is its ability to deliver highly personalized experiences to target accounts. By understanding the specific pain points and needs of each account, businesses can tailor their messaging and content to resonate with their audience on a deeper level. This personalized approach increases the likelihood of engagement and conversion, ultimately driving revenue growth.

Additionally, ABM allows businesses to prioritize their resources and efforts on high-value accounts. By focusing on accounts that have a higher potential for revenue generation, businesses can optimize their marketing and sales strategies, resulting in a more efficient use of resources. ABM also promotes collaboration between marketing and sales teams, fostering alignment and enabling a more coordinated approach to account engagement.

However, ABM does have its limitations. Implementing ABM requires a significant investment of time, effort, and resources. It involves conducting thorough research and analysis to identify the right target accounts, creating personalized content and campaigns, and continuously monitoring and optimizing the results. ABM may not be suitable for businesses with limited resources or those targeting a broad audience.

Learn more in Top Account Based Marketing Tools and Tactics.

On the other hand, traditional marketing offers its own set of benefits. It allows businesses to reach a wider audience and create brand awareness on a larger scale. Traditional marketing channels such as television and radio can be effective in reaching a diverse demographic and generating broad interest. Traditional marketing also provides a more cost-effective option for businesses with limited budgets, as it often requires less customization and personalization.

However, traditional marketing has its limitations as well. It may result in a lower conversion rate compared to ABM, as the messaging and content are not tailored to specific accounts. Traditional marketing campaigns may also face challenges in cutting through the noise and capturing the attention of the target audience, especially in today’s saturated advertising landscape.

Unlock the Power of Targeted ABM with Modern Marketing Partners

In conclusion, account-based marketing and traditional marketing each have their own strengths and weaknesses. While traditional marketing casts a wide net and reaches a larger audience, account-based marketing allows for a more personalized and targeted approach. Depending on your business goals and target audience, one approach may be more suitable than the other.

If you’re looking to implement a successful account-based marketing strategy and need expert guidance, look no further than Modern Marketing Partners. Our team of experienced professionals specializes in ABM and can help you develop and execute effective campaigns that drive results. Contact us today to learn more about our ABM services and how we can help your business thrive in the digital landscape.

Additional Resources

Get a Free Website/SEO Review

The Power of Data in Account-Based Marketing: Leveraging Insights for Targeted Campaigns

Why IT Companies Should Embrace Account-Based Marketing

The post Account-Based Marketing vs. Traditional Marketing: Which Approach is Right for Your Business? appeared first on Modern Marketing Partners.

What are your selling points?

A product should fit a need, and that need comes from the target audience. You must identify the need that your product fulfills and its unique selling points. If it is a solution to a problem, you must identify the problem that it solves and then single out the people who face the problem. Your target audience is the people who are going to use your product based on their needs and your marketing strategies must be targeted towards that.

Scrutinize Your Existing Audience

Your present client database or the customers who buy from you today form your existing audience. To understand and analyze your business, try to examine their buying trends. If you can collate their specific characteristics and purchasing patterns, it will help to benefit and grow your business. It helps to know why your existing base bought your product, the features that are coveted, and the needs that are being fulfilled. This, in turn, helps in identifying and expanding towards a fresh and new target audience.

Analyze your Data

You already know your product details and specifications. This must be brought under microscopic scrutiny time and again. Analyze the data and information that you have, specifically the performance details of your product. This analysis will tell you if your product is lacking or if something needs to be added so that you can attract potential customers. There is more than one revenue accelleration platform available that can provide help in returning high-performance leads. These platforms can be very beneficial in procuring a substantial customer database.

No Assumptions

Make no assumptions about your business and its target audience as those assumptions can often prove to be wrong. Such assumptions can be detrimental to the business and can decrease sales if handled wrong. For instance, you own a business that manufactures comfortable dresses for the elderly. You may assume that the dresses are being bought because they are comfortable, whereas your customers are buying them because of the designs. This assumption can cause you to lose focus on the defining characteristics of your product and market the product to the wrong customer base. Gain feedback from your customers so that you do not need to make assumptions.

Be More Specific

Simply identifying your general target audience is not going to be much help. Within a targeted group of customers, there may be many divisions that you need to take care of. Suppose you have a business selling apparel clothing to teenagers. You may also need to specify which strata of society the teenagers belong to. Is your apparel the ‘off the rack’ kind or is it meant for the more elite class that goes for designer wear? These minute demarcations within the general target audience matter a lot. You need to know which specific category of people within the main group will be more likely to use your product.

Check the Competition

Along with identifying your own audience, you also need to check out the competition in your field. Scan the audience of your competition and find out what it is that has attracted them to the products they offer. Relating to your competitors’ strategies can help you attract their target audience to your own brand. If you know what the audience is looking for you and what they find in the competitors’ products, you will be able to alter your own product to make it more appealing to a wider variety of people. Look at failures too, both in your own business and that of the competition, as there will always be valuable insights and learning.

Maintain your Audience Profiles

Maintain detailed and well informed profiles of your target audience. Some of the characteristics that you can include in your profiles are age, gender, income, ethnic background, educational status, financial status, and social status, along with motivating factors like behavior, hobbies and interests, values, likes and dislikes, and budget and spending patterns. These indicators are helpful in identifying the kind of people who will buy your product and the reason why they buy it.

Know where to Find your Audience

You also need to know where to find your target audience and take into consideration their preferred means of communication. How do your customers find you? Is it in response to advertisements or in reply to emails that you have sent? When you know how your target audience can find you, you will know how to find them.

Have Small Campaigns and Analyze them

Test what makes your clientele choose your products by implementing small test campaigns. See if they are more attuned to advertisements or emails or personal messages. It may take a lot of trial and error to connect with your target audience but you will find value in these campaigns if you are willing to modify and learn.

Grow with a Vision towards the Future

Change is the only thing that is constant. As technology develops, businesses need to grow and change to meet the demands of the future. Have a vision that will help you expand as you grow. The campaigns that are helpful today might not be helpful tomorrow. Envision the demands of the future and develop your product to not only meet the current needs but also the needs five or ten years in the future.

For any business to be successful, customers or clients are very important. However beautiful, useful, or in-demand your product might be, if it does not reach the people it is meant for, it is useless. Only when your product has bridged the gap between the factory and the customers is it going to give you any sense of satisfaction and financial success. To achieve this, knowing, recognizing, and identifying your target audience is important. A business without customers is not a business at all. So go ahead, follow the steps we have given here and grow your business into the success story that you have always dreamed of.

The post An Easy-to-Understand Process on How to Find Your Target Audience appeared first on Modern Marketing Partners.

Continue reading or consider checking out our lead generation or sales enablement services to grow your pipeline and get a marketing assessment to analyze your current workflows.

1. Page View

What are some of the key pages on your website and what do they tell you about your visitors? You can brainstorm “topic areas” you have on your website and send visitors unique, triggered emails based on their specific interests. Some topic area examples include:

• Industry (ex: manufacturing, distribution, etc.)
• Product content (ex: a specific software you offer, or a certain functionality)
• Prospect validation (ex: viewing your case studies, testimonials, etc.)

After you define some of your key topic areas, you can create a series of emails targeted to those visitors and establish a workflow to send them those emails. Targeted/segmented emails such as below have, on average, a 14.32% higher open rate and a 100.95% higher click rate than non-segment campaigns (WordStream).

In the example below, we are enrolling visitors to our ‘Distribution industry’ page in a workflow that contains a series of 4 emails:

• Email 1 – Do you have any questions? A simple, text-based email asking the visitor if they have any questions on our distribution offering and offering some additional resources.
• Email 2 – A link to a read a distribution blog on our site.
• Email 3 – A link to download a distribution whitepaper on our site.
• Email 4 – A link to a distribution case study on the website with a invitation to request a demo or consultation.

Bonus: you can update contact properties (ex: industry) based on page views too!

2. Downloads or Form Submissions

This workflow uses similar logic to the ‘Page View’ one above. If a visitor downloads something on your website like a guide or whitepaper, demo, attends a webcast, etc., you can establish a series of highly-targeted emails that continues to nurture them with additional content or promotion for future events.

In the example below, the visitor has downloaded our “Guide to Financial Management for CFOs”. From this download, we can make two assumptions about the prospect: 1) they are a CFO or in a finance position, and 2) they are interested in financial management topics/improving their existing finance processes.

• Email 1 – Thank you email. A simple, text-based email asking the visitor if they have any questions on the download, a link to access the download at any time, and offering some additional resources
• Email 2 – An email with a link to an article: 10 Tips For Automating Your Financial Management Processes
• Email 3 – A link to another whitepaper on the site: 2020 Trends all CFOs Need to Know
• Email 4 – A link to a financial management case study on the website with a brief product overview and invitation to request a demo or consultation.

We send the thank you email on a very slight delay, and then delay emails 2-4 for at least 7 days each.

You can take the example above and apply it to nearly any industry, application, or topic. The key is to make the content extremely relevant to the original download!

Now, HubSpot does allow you to setup or schedule follow-up emails directly within the form editor. Within the forms tool, you can schedule up to three follow-up emails (with delays) for a specific form. However, these will all be simple, text-based emails without the full functionality available within the HubSpot drag and drop editor. A couple of other downsides to establishing follow-ups via the form is you won’t have the option to set goals, and therefore, conversions, and add any final automated steps to the end of the email series like updating contact properties.

3. Form Abandonment

Don’t let a form stop your prospects from downloading or consuming your content. After all, you already have their contact information!

If one of your contacts views a page with a form, but does not submit it – you can setup a workflow to email them the content “un-gated”. Be sure to monitor the prospects activity to see if they DO consume the content after being sent the un-gated version.

In the example below, the prospect has viewed our on-demand demo video page but did not fill out the form. We would love for them to watch the demo to move them further down the funnel and don’t want the “intimidating” form to discourage them. Therefore, we sent them an email that contains a link to watch it directly. Even better, you can use an ‘If/Then’ branch to send a followup email based on the action they take (ex: watching/engaging with the content vs. not).

• Email 1 – A simple, text-based email with content similar to: I saw you had interest in a demo.. You can watch it directly at this link: ___.
• Email 2 – A thank you message/followup email sent to those that watch the demo: “Thanks for watching the demo.. if you have any questions, or would like to setup a custom demo..” with a link to some additional resources.

Bonus: enroll a contact in one of your nurture workflows, or update their lifecycle stage based on an action taken in this workflow!

4. Assigning Leads to Your Sales Team for New Contacts

This workflow will vary depending on the size of your sales staff, your qualification process, sales team segmentation, and other factors. The good news is that this workflow is very flexible and can accommodate nearly any sales process. Check out some of the different use cases below to update the contact’s owner automatically.

If you have a 1-person sale team, you can simply assign the lead to that person. Alternatively, we have come across clients where 1 person on the team does the qualification and assignment of new leads. In that scenario, you can also simply assign the lead to that contact, who can then reassign it after they go through their qualification process:

If you have a larger sales team, you may want to rotate the leads between your team members. This workflow will allow you to evenly distribute assignments amongst a team or specific owners. In the example below, we are rotating the leads evenly between our US-based team:

Please note, this functionality will require you to have a Sales Hub Professional or Enterprise or Service Hub Professional or Enterprise account.

And finally, you may want to use some of the information about the prospect to assign to your proper sales team member. For example, if the prospect is located in Illinois, you would want to assign to your sales rep that covers that geographic area. Or, if they are interested in a specific product, you would want to assign it to the sales rep for that product. And so on. Be sure to add a small delay after enrollment to make sure that HubSpot has updated the appropriate field before the if/then branches start working.

5. Setting Lead Status

When someone fills out a form on your website, their lead status is left blank by default. However, the lead status can be such a useful field for segmentation down the line that we would recommend leveraging it. If used correctly, you can ensure your team is contacting new leads or following up on leads that are in progress.

Here is how to set the lead status to “New”:

Now, you can update that lead status to “In Progress” after your sales team has engaged with the lead. This workflow will update the lead status after any activity (email, call, meeting, or note) has occurred on the contact record.

6. Changing Lifecycle Stage

We work with many clients who handle moving contacts through lifecycle stages in HubSpot manually based on their unique sales process. For example, they will move a prospect from ‘Qualify’ to ‘Develop’ after a phone or email conversation takes place. 

However, sometimes larger clients with a larger volume of leads need to handle this automatically in order to ensure their sales team is focusing on the most important leads. In order to achieve this you can use Lead Scoring. In short, lead scoring is when you automatically assign values (scores) to leads based on the actions they take on your website like the amount of times they’ve visited your website, form submissions, number of page views, engagement with emails, and so much more. Stay tuned for our blog post on more tips for setting up lead scoring in HubSpot. 

You can see how some of the actions described previously can indicate how “interested” or “warm” a lead is. Therefore, it is a great metric for moving prospects to a new lifecycle stage or even assigning to a different team.

In the example below, we have switched the lifecycle stage from a marketing qualified lead (MQL) to a sales qualified lead (SQL) after they reach a lead score of 20. Also, we switched the contact owner from a member of the ‘Marketing’ team to the ‘Sales’ team.

7. Nurturing Prospects

In between “lead generation” and closing the sale lies the critical middle ground – where lead nurturing is required to move prospects through the funnel:

• 66% of buyers indicate that “consistent and relevant communication provided by both sales and marketing organizations” is a key influence in choosing a solution provider (Genuis.com)
• 80% of new leads never translate into sales and companies that excel at lead nurturing generate 50% more sales ready leads at a 33% lower cost (Invesp)

And depending on your category (ex: enterprise software, government, etc.) the sales cycle may be longer and require even more touches, making nurturing your leads even more critical. HubSpot can help your team automate this in many ways – check out just two ideas below.

Lifecycle Stage

As part of your nurture strategy, it is important to tailor your content and communications to where prospects are at in your funnel (or their lifecycle stage in HubSpot). Your mission should be to use your content to guide your prospects toward eventual conversion. Intuitively, you can infer what some of those content buckets might look life:

• Top of the funnel (subscriber, lead, marketing qualified lead): educational content like blogs, webinars, guides, videos, etc.
• Middle of the funnel (sales qualified lead): educational content + validation content like case studies, demo videos, product descriptions or data sheets
• Bottom of the funnel (opportunity): educational content + validation content + value proposition content like product-specific information, testimonials, reviews, etc.

In the example below, we are leveraging a HubSpot workflow to automatically enroll contacts in an email series when they move from a MQL to a SQL. There are 10 emails in total, that deliver every 3 weeks. This will ensure they receive a consistent stream of content relevant to their position in the funnel with the aim of moving them to the next stage.

Be sure to update your Unenrollment and suppression settings if you use this type of workflow. In the example above, I would want to remove them from my previous stage workflow (MQL) to ensure they don’t receive emails in that workflow any longer.

Vertical Workflows

Using the same idea or logic as above, you can offer even MORE tailored content to your prospects to move them through your funnel. One great example of this is industry. If you sell a product/software that has multiple industry applications – send them content relevant to their industry!

Like above, we are leveraging a HubSpot workflow to automatically enroll contacts in an email series when they move from a MQL to a SQL. However, we are adding another enrollment criteria – their industry. Again, we created here 10 emails in total, that deliver every 3 weeks. Now, the emails we are sending are not only specific to their position in the funnel but their industry as well. So when we email them about a blog – the topic of the blog is specific to the distribution industry, the case study we send them is specific to the distribution industry, etc.

Make sure to set a goal for these (and all) workflows! In this specific example, my goal would be for the contact property ‘Lifecycle Stage’ to move from SQL to the next stage.

Some other ideas for further segmenting prospects beyond lifecycle stage or industry include:

• Company size
• Job title
• Product line they are interested in

8. Engage Neglected Prospects

Don’t let prospects fall through the cracks! You can create a workflow to remind your sales team to reach out to a contact if it has been a certain amount of time since they’ve last been contacted.

In the example below, we have created a task for a sales team member for them to check in with a prospect if it has been more than 12 weeks since they’ve last been contacted. To ensure the sales team is focusing on “higher priority” leads, we’ve also added additional criteria to ensure the prospects meet our qualification minimums.

Similarly, you could attempt to re-engage inactive contacts with an email about an exclusive offer or discount you are offering. For this, you could use a variety of enrollment criteria such as:

• The length of time since their last website visit (ex: more than 6 months)
• The length of time since their last email click/open
• Etc.

9. Important Internal Notifications/Tasks

Is your sales team using the HubSpot activity feed? If so, they may be already getting a wealth of information like when their prospects perform specific activities like opening/clicking an email, visiting your website, filling out a form, etc. With this (potential) overload of information, it may be possible to miss something.

You can use workflows to setup a notification or create a task when a prospect visits a key page or takes a key action. This can ensure your sales team follows up immediately and doesn’t miss anything.

• Create a task for a HubSpot user
• Send an internal SMS to a HubSpot user
• Send notification (in-app alert or mobile push) to teams or users
• Send internal email

In the example below, we have set up an email notification when a prospect views the demo page:

Be sure that the internal notification email template contains as much important information about the lead as possible to make it even easier for the sales team to follow up – at minimum their first name, last name, company name, phone number, last conversion, and a link to the full contact record.

10. New Customer

When someone moves from a lead to an official customer there are a ton of processes that will now need to start. You can use workflows to handle some of that busy work. Here are some common ones we use:

Add them to your customer list – We like doing this for a couple of reasons. First, data hygiene is critical and it is important to have an updated list of your customers. We use this specific customer list to send important company updates like closures, product updates, and more. Second, we suppress the customer list on a lot of our marketing communications. This is a quick and simple way to ensure customers don’t receive the wrong message.

Update Lead Status – Once a contact becomes a customer you can update their lead status to ‘Closed’ to ensure no other sales people try to follow up.

Update Contact Owner – Now that the sales process is complete you may want to move the owner of the account from the sales person to a member of your customer service team. You can do that using a workflow like below:

Send emails – When a contact becomes a customer a number of processes now need to take place. Depending on your product/service, you may want to send a contract, onboarding email, a series of training emails, or even try to upsell a customer at a later point. All of these scenarios are a possibility with HubSpot workflows – you can send an email (or a series of emails) when a contact becomes a customer.

In the example below, a customer success teams sends an email 6 months after the contact becomes a customer soliciting a testimonial and to provide a satisfaction survey. Then, at the 1 year mark, they send an “anniversary” email thanking them for being a customer, etc.

There you have it! These are just 10 workflows that can set your sales team up for success, while saving time. To measure the success of your workflows, make sure you set a goal for every single one! A workflow goal is the ultimate objective of your contact-based workflow. When an enrolled contact meets the workflow goal criteria, they are automatically unenrolled from the workflow.

Looking for More Leads?

If you need help developing content to support these robust workflows, or optimizing your HubSpot for lead generation or sales, contact us. Or register for a free marketing assessment. Your custom consultation includes a complete marketing assessment, in-depth Website/SEO analysis, and marketing plan recommendations that will help you dramatically increase website traffic quality and quantity, leverage a systematic process for identifying marketing qualified leads (MQLs) and converting to sales qualified leads (SQLs), and more.

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Fast forward to 2020, more than 100,000 software publishers exist with 1 million projected by 2027 (source:  Forrester). With channel partners often competing with the publishers they represent. To say business software is a competitive market is an understatement. 

With that set-up, sit back and take in some perspective on such thought-provoking questions as:  Why VARs are relevant? How can VARs be more successful? This last question answers the title: Secrets to VAR Sales Success with the Top 10 Marketing Tactics to Improve Lead Generation, followed by several, relevant resources. You can thank us after you take it all in. 

Why VARs are Relevant? 

Our perspective from working in multiple software ecosystems is that while business software is more competitive than ever, VARs are not only relevant, but critical to the success of most business software publishers. No question, publishers can go market directly, through channel partners, or via a hybrid direct/partner sales model. Publishers choose to use channel partners to scale rapidly and gain market share while focusing on technology, development, finance, and corporate marketing. Publishers rely on channel partners for sales, implementation and local marketing. VARS might offer proprietary expertise in a vertical market, or complimentary (software) point solutions that can be integrated with open APIs. Yes, VARs are relevant.

How can VARs be more Successful?

Software ecosystems with channel partners have top resellers and implementation consultants that are killing it. Subscription software is the gift that keeps giving, ala annual renewal profits, which makes for a lot of successful channel partners. Which is also why the number of channel partners continues to grow. But due to increased competition, VAR success is not automatic. In 2020, the ultra-competitive business software market requires more effort. Or more effective efforts. Many previously successful legacy VARs that never did (effective) marketing are no longer successful. And many VAR startups struggle without (effective) marketing.

Telemarketing doesn’t work (decision makers screen with voicemail). Advertising doesn’t work (decision makers consume media electronically). Networking doesn’t work like it used to (more competitors doing the same networking). Sales doesn’t work like it used to (decision makers are deluged with sales calls and communications, no time for entertainment). Safe to say, only a small percentage of VARs are wildly successful.

Modern Marketing Partners (MMP) has the unique perspective of working in multiple software ecosystems. Working with software publishers on corporate marketing, developing channel marketing programs, launching VAR startups that become leading VARs, and providing marketing to large, established VARs and IT service providers of all types. MMP also supports several small, established VARS.

Back to the title of this advisory, Secrets to VAR Sales Success. As you may suspect from a marketing consultant, the secret to VAR sales success is effective marketing. That said, the bridge from marketing to sales success is Lead Generation. So how can VARS improve Lead Generation? No simple answers. Effective Lead Generation requires a combination of marketing tactics, all working together. As mentioned, many traditional marketing and sales tactics no longer work like they used to. So how can VARs do effective marketing to improve lead generation, and ultimately sales?

MMP has all kinds of advice on effective marketing that drives lead generation including content marketing, SEO, event marketing, Micro-Vertical marketing, Paid Search, Account-Based marketing, In-Bound marketing, Digital Marketing Transformation, Thought Leadership Marketing, and more. Get some coffee and see recommended reading below. 

To get to the point, following are the Top 10 Marketing Tactics to Improve Lead Generation that apply to VARs, or any information technology or professional services provider.

Top 10 Marketing Tactics to Improve Lead Generation

1. Website Optimization
2. Content
3. Micro-vertical marketing
4. Prospect R&D
5. Email
6. Awareness Building
7. Paid Search 
8. Social Media
9. Event Marketing
10. Sales Tools

Website Optimization is the foundation to all success! To be competitive in 2020, every website must be mobile, secure (SSL/HTTPS), with both on-page and off-page search engine optimization (SEO). Local SEO is now critical including GMB, citations, and local markup code. SEO is getting more complex, so likely you will require expert assistance. Of course your website should be aesthetically pleasing, with a good user experience (UX), and have great content, the next subject. 

To be successful in 2020, you must publish or perish. That is, Content Marketing is critical. In software, technology and professional services, content should be educational, and have good frequency. Content types include website landing pages, blogs, case studies, white papers, video, infographics, and more. Don’t forget to use Calls-to-Action (CTAs), and put registration forms in-front of really great content (this to elicit a sales lead).

Micro-Vertical Marketing is all the rage in software circles, and works best when the channel partner has developed proprietary processes or Intellectual Property (IP) for a market niche to become the subject matter expert (SME). Check out MMP’s Micro-Vertical Marketing Guide to learn how to execute Micro-Vertical Marketing.

To get leads in 2020, every marketer and salesperson should be constantly researching and identifying prospective customers. Prospect R&D for short. Today there are many sources for doing just that including LinkedIn Sales Navigator, online databases, associations, and trade magazines.

Prospect identification supports our next tactic, email. As websites are foundational to marketing, email lists are critical to effective email. Lists must be accurate and verified to ensure high deliverability. Tools like Hunter and Email Verifier are recommended. Ideally lists are segmented with relevant codes, and support personalization. As email open and click-thru rates (CTRs) decline over time (due to end user fatigue and spam blocking), lists must be larger to achieve results. Email service providers (ESPs), CRM and marketing automation software have good features and reporting that help marketers nurture prospects or marketing qualified leads (MQLs) through the sales cycle, and identify sales qualified leads (SQLs) based on actions. Email Tip: post-campaign click-thru reports are Lead-Gen Gold! 

In 2020, the aforementioned digital marketing can achieve lead generation, but software is an expensive purchase, so prospects will be risk-averse with channel partners that they have never heard of. Building brand awareness is important. Most large firms enjoy brand awareness. Other firms have to work on it using publicity, advertising, sponsorships, and speaking engagements, and more. Supporting and participating with a local, regional or national cause can bring awareness to your firm.

Achieving organic (free or natural) search authority is complex and takes time. New and small websites are at a disadvantage compared to mature (domain age is a search ranking factor), and large websites. Paid search is a way to rank in top positions of a search engine results page (SERP), before you can rank organically. Such positions are typically pay-per-click (PPC), but other paid search options include remarketing and display advertising. That said, software and IT services are very competitive, often competing with the publisher for both paid and organic rankings. Cost-per-Click (CPC) will likely be expensive, so often paid search is used only until organic (ranking for keywords) can be achieved. On the positive, PPC provides robust reporting, so campaigns can be optimized, and sales conversions measured.

Social Media is a critical element of both marketing and sales initiatives. Lets start with social media marketing. Your brand will require LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. LinkedIn includes company page, optimized personal page, possibly LinkedIn Groups, and SlideShare which integrates with personal profiles. YouTube is owned by Google and has been called the second biggest search engine. YouTube video descriptions is meta code that ranks high in search results. Tip: Have a YouTube video(s) for every, important keyword. Use YouTube videos on website landing pages, emails and more via embed codes. Facebook Business pages are a must have, and Twitter can reach audiences the other social networks cannot. Heard of Social Selling? Sales and all customer-facing staff can augment and piggyback off corporate social media, and use LinkedIn to target individual decision makers for the aforementioned Prospect R&D, along with direct outreach.

Event Marketing can be effective in driving lead generation if done effectively. Whether live events or webcasts, events can be successful if the topic is interesting, and real customers or peers are used (not just the vendor). Event marketing can include sponsoring an association or trade show event with speaking or networking opportunities. Live events can include entertainment aspects, but should still include a presentation. Regardless of event type, each require time to execute multi-channel promotion and recruitment. For more details, check out the MMP Event Marketing Checklist.

All this high-powered marketing will generate sales leads that will result in sales presentations, proposals, and ideally contracts. Sales Tools are required to manage this process including CRM software, Marketing Automation, lead management, presentation decks, and more. Channel partners must manage contact and registration form submissions quickly, ideally being the first to talk to a prospect that has a software requirement. Other sources of leads include email click-thru reports, IP tracking, LiveChat, and more.

Beyond the Top 10 Lead Generation Tactics, please consider other “advanced marketing wizardry” that includes more strategic marketing that can differentiate channel partners from competitors.  Thought Leadership Marketing is another approach that can involve copious amounts of content, ideally branded as a educational entity that is sponsored by the brand. SAP sponsors the Digitalist Magazine, while New York VAR MIBAR.net sponsors the Business Software Education Center. (See Thought Leadership Marketing Guide in Recommended Reading below). Finally, Account-Based Marketing (ABM) is a hot topic for marketing and selling to large enterprises. (See ABM Marketing in Recommended Reading below)

More Secrets and Some Nuances to VAR Sales Success

Extreme competition has changed the landscape for Value-Added Resellers (VARs) and channel partners. Prospect identification is critical, and often a race to “register the lead” with software publishers before a competitor registers.

A discussion about software sales would be incomplete without considering  Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs), Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs), and conversion rates that can be predicted within each software ecosystem based on average sales price, competitive and economic environment, and other factors. Check out Lead Conversion Rates for Software for more information. Finally, average sales cycle (length) should be considered. Generally, the higher the price tag, the longer the sales cycle with 100+ days common.

The future is bright for VARs and channel partners to achieve extraordinary sales success, but only if marketing becomes a top priority, and effective, ongoing marketing implementation is accomplished. A shake-out awaits channel partners that do not invest adequately in marketing excellence.

Learn more about our software marketing services, or request a free marketing assessment at the link below.

Recommended Reading:

25 Lead Generation Tips and Types (MMP)

Software Marketing Guide (MMP)

Thought Leadership Marketing Guide (MMP)

Top Account-Based Marketing Marketing Tools and Tactics (MMP)

The post Secrets to VAR Sales Success appeared first on Modern Marketing Partners.

ABM is likely the exact opposite of approaches you’re currently taking; where you cast a wide net to drive multiple leads, hoping that a few truly workout and are a good fit for your products or services. Most of your marketing focus is being spent on top funnel activities to get noticed and generate some interest in your brand.

With ABM, your focus starts by bringing sales and marketing together. You will jointly determine your goals, select the accounts or companies you want to work with, delegate roles and accountability and start researching. The ABM strategy is a good thing for your sales and marketing teams as 70 percent of ABM users report their teams are mostly or completely aligned compared to 50 percent of non-ABM users.

Through a joint effort you are better able to address the needs of your B2B buyer today. A buyer that is usually not just an individual, but also part of a group of people comprising a company committee tasked with the purchasing decision. Purchasing teams that continue to be growing, according to a Harvard Business Review report that found the number of people involved in B2B solutions purchases has climbed from an average of 5.4 two years ago to 6.8 today.

Dig Deep with Data

Now you need to start getting to know your audience through data. This can be pulled from CRM system records, marketing automation tools, business directories, and numerous online sources. LinkedIn, Google Alerts and Google News can be useful tools. To effectively launch an ABM strategy you need to gather company facts such as: key decision makers contact information, number of employees, location(s), products or services, current customers, technology use, pain points, etc.

Social media analytics can also support ABM. How? By “social listening” to your target companies and individuals, and engaging with both via social networks including LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.  Your targets social content will give you insights into their interests, which then can be used in your ABM communications and campaigns.

The foundation of ABM is a customer database or profile with detailed information on the company, individuals, and a history of interactions and communications. Profiles are updated and used by all team members for real-time information.

Create and Deliver Personalized Content and Events

It’s time to determine the ABM tactics you’ll use to engage decision-makers, or the buying committee at target accounts. This involves creating personalized content and figuring out how best to deliver it. Every organization will need to determine what makes sense for them. Here are four key tactics for engaging B2B buyers:

Educational Content

Well-executed white papers, blog posts, infographics, webinars, etc. can gain your target’s trust while demonstrating your expertise. You may have existing content that you can repurpose by including a personalized introduction and conclusion. If your company has good data from a recent study that’s been conducted, slice and dice the data whether by industry or business size and repackage the stats specific for your target.

Remember, video content works well for this tactic too. Like blogs, if you have or want to develop a library of videos that address key questions or needs that can then be communicated via a nurturing process.

 Social media can be used to communicate with companies or individuals. You’re working toward making the target more receptive to your future ABM tactics and ultimately a purchase.  

Email Gets Personal

ABM replaces mass emails, with personalized emails. Think in terms of targeted emails to small lists, or a single decision-maker based on roles, personas, titles, or related. Cadence or frequency is important. You want your target to think you are the subject matter expert for your product/service. And you want to guide them through the purchasing process, from initial information gathering, to final decision making. The purchasing cycle (your sales cycle) is different for every product/service or industry. Your communications timing and frequency should, ideally, dovetail with target information requirements.

Direct Mail

Best used once a target is showing a high degree of engagement with your company. It’s an oldie, but a goody. It gives you the opportunity to send a personalized offer and note designed with the idea that you’d like to schedule time to help them solve their current problem. This is content that marketing should produce and hand off to sales to execute. If you know enough about your specific prospect, a small, interesting, and sometimes humorous gift will help you remain on your target buyer’s mind.

In-person Events

The power of a face-to-face encounter still prevails. Many B2B sales cycles are six to nine months long, strategize how to establish an in-person relationship during that time. Industry events work well if you are an exhibitor; consider hosting a special live event for your ABM contacts. Creating a genuine connection helps humanize your brand very quickly.

Measure ABM ROI

Marketers will need to determine the best ABM tactics for their businesses, as there are many worth implementing to create the necessary hyper-focused, highly personalized approach. You will be devoting a good deal of resources to a select few targets v. stretching your lead budget to reach as many as prospects as possible. That’s the beauty of how ABM works — it pays in stronger leads that convert at a higher rate and result in better ROI. Be sure to measure and report sales conversions, and ideally, calculate return on marketing investment (ROMI).

Relevant ABM Resources:

The Ultimate Guide to Account-Based Marketing: 6 Key Steps

The Fundamentals of ABM You Can’t Live Without

Align Marketing and Sales Initiatives to Drive Success

Micro-Vertical Marketing Guide

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More recently, micro-vertical market marketing has gained interest as competition grows in software, consulting, capital equipment, and truly any “considered purchase” market (considered purchase is a typically complex, high dollar value scenario vs. impulse purchase, which is simple and low dollar value).

Our micro-vertical marketing guide will start with a definition, followed by details on industry classifications. Next, objectives and some tips for identifying viable micro-verticals. Of course, effective marketing is the key to success, so best practices are delineated. Finally, a micro-vertical marketing case study will share a real life example, and relevant resources will provide additional insight.

Continue reading or consider checking out our vertical marketing services.

Micro-Vertical Marketing DEFINED

Micro-vertical marketing is going deeper into broad market segments, to identify sub-segments that have specialized and common requirements, applications, decision-makers, and more. Often broad market segments are described as “horizontal” market segments that are made up of vertical and now, micro-vertical segments. In the past, marketers called vertical or micro-vertical marketing, niche marketing. Finally, the identification (and analysis) of market segments is called market segmentation.

Historically, market segments were referenced by Standard Industrial Classifications (SIC codes), developed and used by multiple branches of the U.S. government. In 1997, the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) codes replaced “SICs”, with corresponding codes. Today, both codes are still used, and can identify both horizontal, vertical, and micro-vertical market segments. Often, directories and mail/email list providers use such codes for classifying records. Examples include D&B, Hoovers, InfoUSA, and more. Finally, outside of North America, there is a corresponding International Standard Industrial Classification (ISIC) system.

Following is an example of market classifications and segmentations that will aid understanding (see appendix for additional market classifications and codes).

Micro-Vertical Marketing OBJECTIVES

The objective of micro-vertical marketing is to demonstrate expertise that is relevant to the specialized requirements of a micro-vertical customer.  Educational content relevant to these requirements is key. If executed effectively, the brand (or person) will be perceived as a subject matter expert (SME), and ideally, the thought leader for that micro-vertical. Once achieved, the brand can rise to the top of the consideration set, reducing or eliminating competitors, speeding up the sales cycle, and ultimately driving sales.

How To IDENTIFY a Micro-Vertical

To ensure success, brands or marketers should target micro-vertical markets that leverage past experience, and ideally, proprietary skills or intellectual property (IP), that is difficult to replicate. Such experience, skills or IP lend themselves to a Case Study, which is critical. Of course this is not always possible, so brands may be able to leverage vendor experience, IP or case studies as an option.

Other keys to micro-vertical marketing success are market size, market infrastructure, and decision-making process.

Regarding market size, it is important to identify early whether the micro-vertical has enough prospective customers, and is not too small to be worthwhile of investment in time and resources. Directories like D&B or Hoovers can quickly identify “counts”, or number of companies for a given NAICS code. A rule-of-thumb for market size minimum depends on your brand sales objectives, but 100-1,000 establishments can be a preliminary benchmark.

Once a micro-vertical passes the “size test”, research industry infrastructure. Specifically, identify if any associations, media/publications, trade shows, lists, and related assets are available. Such industry “assets” can often support the next topic, marketing.

Understanding the decision-making process in a micro-vertical is certainly helpful. Likewise, identifying who decision makers are by title(s) is important. Such insights can come from interviewing customers or industry experts, but may differ by size of company.

Micro-Vertical MARKETING Best Practices

So what type of marketing tactics are effective for micro-vertical marketing? To answer, lets go back to that “considered purchase” reference. For expensive and complex purchases, prospective customers are very likely going to do their “homework”, which today is most often a “Google” search. Marketers must anticipate this scenario and have content along with search marketing in place. 

No question, a search-optimized website is foundational to effective micro-vertical marketing. Search engine optimization (SEO) is a too big of a topic for now. For more information, link to the MMP SEO Guide.

Educational content relevant to the micro-vertical will be critical to success. Ideally content positions your brand as a subject matter expert (SME), or thought leader. Website content should include landing and registration pages, blogs, case studies, white papers, reports, videos, and more. Interlinking of such assets, and calls-to-action (CTAs) are important considerations.

Certainly, such website content supports organic or free website traffic for given keywords. Other marketing tactics that drive organic traffic include email, social media, and link-building.

Email is absolutely critical to micro-vertical marketing success. Why? Because email lists identify prospects in a micro-vertical. Of course, email should target decision makers, and drive traffic to relevant website content. Email lists should go deep into a prospective business (e.g. multiple contacts), and be verified for deliverability. Emails should be optimized for open and click-thru rates (CTRs). For more info on email, link to the MMP Email Guide.

Social media is another significant source of organic website traffic. In addition, social media often ranks high on search engine results pages (SERPs). For example, YouTube videos rank high for specific keywords. LinkedIn is an excellent social network for business decision makers. Facebook Business Pages, and Twitter are key networks that should be used. Finally, Facebook advertising can be effective for many micro-verticals.

Relevant and high authority links to your website also support organic traffic. Article writing and placement with in relevant online media with “Do-Follow” links is an example of link-building. Branded thought leadership is another link building and organic traffic-building strategy. For more info, link to the MMP Thought Leadership Guide.

Besides organic or free website traffic, Paid Search delivers (paid) website traffic that is especially effective when educational content or calls-to-action (CTAs) are employed. Paid Search includes Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising (e.g. Google AdWords), Remarketing, and Display advertising (e.g. banners). We recommend Paid Search for new websites that cannot attain search authority quickly, or for categories with a large number of competitors.

No question, all aspects of digital marketing are key to micro-vertical marketing success. That said, the are also some traditional marketing tactics can support effective micro-vertical marketing. Intuitively, trade shows, networking, and other live events are often vertical market focused. Finally, publicity and advertising are tactics that can build awareness in vertically-focused media.CASE STUDY – Micro-Vertical Marketing

A leading business software reseller based in the northeast successfully implements micro-vertical marketing in multiple niches. This case study will focus on one of their most successful micro-verticals to demonstrate best practices: K-12 Private Schools.

For this reseller, the micro-vertical started with a single, successful implementation. Not only was experience in place, but the reseller developed proprietary integrations and systems that address requirements specific to private schools such as tuition payments, fundraising, along with multiple accounting automations.

Regarding market size, K-12 Private Schools number 34,576 in the United States according to the National Center for Educational Statistics. What’s more, there is an association for the decision makers in private schools, the National Business Officers Association (NBOA). The Business Officer title is unique to private schools and includes CFOs, Presidents, Operations, and more. Association members are also non-executive staff. Finally, NBOA has an annual conference and publications which are marketing and sales opportunities.

The reseller implemented a complete marketing mix to communicate to private school targets including website landing pages and blogs, case studies and white papers, email lists and campaigns, and trade show participation.

The results reinforce the reason micro-vertical marketing is gaining popularity. Leveraging a single client along with proprietary technology for the micro-vertical, the reseller achieved market leadership, beating competitors, and closing deals year in and out with multiple private schools. Over time, additional customizations and integrations further reinforced technology leadership in the private school micro-vertical.

Is Micro-Vertical Marketing a SILVER BULLET?

Micro-vertical marketing can be effective in many considered purchase categories (software, technology, financial and professional services). Why? Because the brand or marketer can demonstrate specialized expertise in specific micro-verticals by communicating and marketing to a very targeted prospect base, and be perceived as a subject matter expert (SME), thought leader, or preferred solution provider.

Micro-vertical marketing requires skill to identify viable markets, and execute the proper marketing mix. The objective of micro-vertical marketing is that if implemented correctly, the (micro-vertical) marketer can rise to the top of the “consideration set”, reducing or even eliminating competition, speeding up the sales cycle, and ultimately driving sales.

Interested in implementing Micro-Vertical Marketing?  Get the full Micro-Vertical Marketing Guide or request a marketing assessment to learn more.

Relevant Micro-Vertical Marketing Resources 

Micro-verticals are nipping at the heels of enterprise application vendors (Infoworld)

Infor Aligns Partners and Micro-Verticals to Facilitate Last Mile Configuration (Infor)

Which commercial models make mobile-enterprise SaaS start-ups successful? (McKinsey)

Top Account Based Marketing Tools and Tactics (MMP)
Micro-Vertical Marketing Appendix

Some examples of top Markets, corresponding NAICS Codes, and Market Segmentation.

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